U.S. And OPEC Flood Oil Market Ahead Of Midterms

OPEC and the U.S. are together adding enormous volumes of new supply, which together have softened the oil market. In October, OPEC hiked oil production to the highest level since 2016, back before the oil production cuts went into effect, according to a recent Reuters survey . The higher output, led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, come just as Iranian oil is going offline. Also, Libya saw a sharp rebound in production, although the country is not part of the OPEC+ production cuts. The 15 countries in OPEC produced an average 33.31 million barrels per day in October, the highest since December 2016. That was also up 390,000 bpd from September. “Oil producers appear to be successfully offsetting the supply outages from Iran and Venezuela,” said Carsten Fritsch of Commerzbank. Russia, which is not part of OPEC but part of the OPEC+ coalition, continues to produce at post-Soviet […]